Brooklyn, you see, used to be a Dutch colony. Yep. And this gin we're using is a Holland gin (i.e. a genever), and it was made to a 19 century American recipe with the help of David Wondrich, using the New York Distilling Company's unaged, double-distilled rye whiskey. Moreover, it's bloody fantastic.

If you remember me at all, you’ll probably know me as the chap who wrote tasting notes and things, and used the word “soupcon” too much. If you work at Master of Malt, you may know me as “the bloke that did that thing at the Christmas Party” or “the terrible man who did that other thing in Sales Director Ben’s office which Ben still hasn’t found out about”.

Regardless of whether or not you know me, you better learn something, punk: I’m back from Africa, I’ve just tasted a £16,000 bottle of whisky and now I’m going to tell you all about it.

You might be wondering where all the winners of our Premium Whisky Advent Calendar competition competitions are. With a calendar being given away every week in November to lucky winners who purchased Tasting Sets, there should be more winners! We do apologise. With Christmas on its way, we’ve been a bit snowed under getting all sorts of exciting stuff prepared for the holiday season. (Keep your eyes peeled!)

Winning can be tough. Rugby players sometimes get their teeth knocked out to win. Wrestlers have to dropkick everyone in sight to get a taste of the gold. Chess is just difficult to play, let alone beat someone at it. To other people, like this week’s winner of our Premium Whisky Advent Calendar competition, winning was as easy as buying a delicious Tasting Set and letting the prizes roll in.

I’m pleased to say that numbers 39-42 are as fabulous as those that preceded them, and am delighted to reveal that we’ve got yet another 4 releases to come before the end of the year (including time-travelling barmen, and an absolute belter of an Islay that’s something of an exclusive).

The 11th November 2013 will forever go down in the annals of history as 3D-Day, the day when the chaps off that there Caskstrength.net officially launched their fourth whisky bottling as well as a piece of cinema that may well prove to be the most significant televisual event since Quantum Leap, and I don't say that lightly.

‘A’ was for Arran, ‘B’ was for BenRiach and ‘C’ was for Cutty Sark. That leads us to ‘D’ in Neil and Joel’s epic A-Z series, and why have one ‘D’ when you can have 3? A tremendous blended malt constructed from the Diageo trio of Dailuaine, Dalwhinnie and Dufftown single malts was the result. It’s quite literally 3'D' malt whisky, and who doesn’t love a bit of 3D?

Whisky cocktails don’t get much more classic than the Blood and Sand, so it was inevitable that it would feature on #MasterofCocktails sooner or later. This version has, however, been thoroughly pimped with some snazzy new ingredients!

Most of the tweets I received last night went along the lines of "I need to get me some of that", almost regardless of the ingredient that was being mentioned. They were all 100% spot on too - you do indeed need these in your life as they're properly crazy-good!

Another week, and another 4 brand-spanking-new releases from That Boutique-y Whisky Company have hit the shelves in time for Christmas. Once again I’m left trying to justify the madness that’s escaped from my bonce and onto the labels of these fine drams...

So – let’s start with the most obvious of the 4. A Giant with a fondness for Jam Sandwiches stealing a giant hat from a dunnage warehouse whilst all unnecessary on Bourbon. That? That.

As mentioned last week, this one is going to be super-simple and super-high-quality. We’re making the perfect Manhattan, something not entered into lightly, of course, as it's a cocktail that's no doubt close to many people’s hearts. A true classic that enjoys fame around the globe, this version, none-the-less, is a little bit special.

You could follow the action and mix-along on twitter (#MasterofCocktails) on Sunday night, as you can every week, and now here it is in all its completeness for you to enjoy!